Jo lives in a small town in southern Japan. She lives with her two children and Japanese husband and is learning more everyday about the world of Japanese agriculture and culture.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

New Business

Today I took my first step into the new world of the Japanese jam business. I have been making jam for many years from excess fruit and vegetables from our garden, but have only ever put it in our cupboards or given it to friends. But from today I hope to slowly make this hobby into a business - the main word to note in that sentence is "slowly".......So today it was into the garden to pull out the last of this season's carrots and voila - 20 jars of "Carrot and Apricot Jam" were produced. Thank goodness my New Zealand food processor decided to work today (thanks Dad and Dawn!) so I didn't end up with grated fingers! Judging by the jam that was spilt all over the bench it looks like it will set properly and tastes pretty good - anyone with "Cook's Garden" recipe book check out page 56 - it is definately worth trying.Anyway, the next step is the labelling...... I have been playing around with some designs, but the major problem is finding a name for my new business. The name of the mountain behind our house is called Mt. Tsuwado so I would like to call it "Tsuwado Farm", but Tom doesn't like that name. His suggestion is "not Tsuwado Farm". A great help he is! If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. I like the following logo, but again Tom isn't so impressed. Again any suggestions are welcome!

Today I had another lesson in Japanese agriculture. I asked Tom to get me some soil for growing my seeds and seedlings so he went off in his father's little midget truck and returned very pleased with himself. However unfortunately he had asked the shop for "soil for seedlings" which was a very logical thing to ask for unless you live in Japan...... The soil he arrived home with was tiny little balls of dirt which are indeed used to grow seedlings in - rice plant seedlings! The result was half an hour of shovelling the soil into bags for Tom's father to use later and a trip to the shop to get some more appropriate soil......